Weekending - May 11, 2018

Happy Monday!  What a weekend!  Hope you all had a great Mother's Day.  I had more to celebrate than just that special day -- we enjoyed celebrating a graduation too.

On Friday, I drove across the state to Kansas City to celebrate a college graduation.  My friend's daughter, Haley, earned her Master's and it was exciting to share in the festivities with her family.  She has worked hard to earn her degree and we are so proud of her.

I whipped up the banner and the present embellishment with my Silhouette.  I swear I don't know what I would do without that machine! 

After the graduation ceremony, we ventured to Lidia's for cocktails and dinner.  You might have heard of Lidia Bastianich - she's the founder and president of Tavola Productions which produces Lidia's Italy.  She also has several cookbooks, which are now on my want list.  I'd love to start with her book Lidia's Celebrate Like An Italian book that contains 220 foolproof recipes that make every meal a party.  But back to the graduation dinner.....

Our party of twenty traveled to this former railroad house located just north of Kansas City's historic Union Station, that is now home to Lidia's, and began with cocktails.  There is a lovely garden area for people to gather and the bar is great also.  

Dinner and dessert were served family style.  Believe me, no one walked away hunger!  

With full bellies and happy hearts, we left the restaurant knowing that Haley was truly loved and her future looks very bright.

Saturday morning I met with a couple in Kansas City that I'm helping with their wedding.  You know how much I love weddings, so this was a fun meeting!  When that was over, I headed to my home town to pick up my mom.  We were going to spend the rest of the day together doing fun stuff that moms and daughters do.

We did some retail therapy at the outlet malls on the way to my house, enjoyed dinner at Peel, more shopping and then went to see Life of the Party.  It was close to midnight when we rolled back to my house, so I would say we were successful at squeezing in a lot of activity for the day!

Sunday morning, my mom, Eric and I went to IHOP to enjoy breakfast.  I got my favorite pancakes - banana and pecan.  They are not on the menu, but at my IHOP if you ask very nicely they will gladly serve them to you.

After breakfast, I drove my mom back to her house.  It was great spending time with my mom over Mother's Day!

On my way back home, I stopped downtown to enjoy dinner with Ian and Kayla.  They treated me to dinner at one of my favorites spots - Rosalita's Cantina.  I tried their new Cauliflower Bowl with chicken (YUM!).  We also had the fried ice cream for dessert.

What a great weekend!  I was showered with Mother's Day gifts and spent the rest of the night on the couch watching Little Women and looking through my new cookbooks.  Perfect way to cap off an already great weekend!

Be sure to check back in on Wednesday this week.  I'm one of the new co-hosts for the Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop.  The hop will go live at 7 pm on Tuesday.  Hope you pop back in, link your post and enjoy all the great things others are sharing.

Check out what others were up to this weekend.

B Loved Boston

Over the Moon

Hello Monday